The invention relates to apparatus and methods for holding one or more stacks of sheets, especially stacks of sheets that are placed so that they are offset from each other (so-called offset collating), that are output to an output station by a sheet processing device.
There are sheet processing devices, called finishers, that process sheets of specific sizes, e.g. the formats DIN A4 and DIN A5, and also carry out specific processes on the sheets, e.g. center and Z-folds, but that do not have any equipment to punch, bind, staple, etc. the stacks of sheets that are output. Further processing procedures of this type must be carried out on other devices. This makes it necessary to take the loose stack of sheets placed at the output station of the sheet processing device and manually transport it to a further processing device. This involves the danger that the sheets in a sheet stack that are placed so that the edges match will slip around and that individual, or even several, sheets of the stack of sheets that has been placed will become disordered and will have to be aligned again before further processing. This procedure takes a lot of time and is not cost-effective.
According to an aspect of the invention, an apparatus and method are provided for handling stacks of sheets. According to a preferred embodiment, transport of loose sheets is allowed without disturbing the stack of sheets.
Further characteristics and advantages can be found in the description of an embodiment of the invention and the other subclaims. The drawings show: